Mark of Murder - Dell Shannon (11 page)

The hospital said, No change.

He had read Hackett's notes, and he had read
Traffic's official report on the Ford. He was now listening to
Palliser, who had found Margaret Corliss in her apartment last night.

"
. . . said she'd been out shopping and visiting
friends, and hunting a new job. Maybe natural. But there's something
offbeat there, I can't put a finger on it but--"

"You haven't interpreted Art's notes. Maybe we
can, with a little cerebration," said Mendoza. "I want to
see that office. She said he hadn't been to see her?"

"
That's right. She was home alone all that
evening, nobody came to see her."

"Really. Poor girl. And she ought to be home
alone at this hour too. Jimmy." He got up and went to the door.
"Call that Corliss woman, tell her to be home at one-thirty,
I'll drop by to see her then .... Here's one thing," he added to
Palliser. "His wife told Art that about the time Nestor
graduated from his chiropractic course he had a legacy. Which he used
to fit out his very classy new office. She said to me last night he
hadn't any relatives. Suppose you check that out--where'd the legacy
come from? Fond godfather maybe? I'd just like to know. I'd also like
to know something about Andrea Nestor's background. And the
background of that Telfer at the hotel."

"Well, all right," said Palliser. He
sounded a little surprised. "My own thought was, if we can find
out something definite about who Hackett did see Friday night--"

Mendoza stabbed out a cigarette, his tenth this
morning, and laughed sharply. "
Eso cae de
su peso.
Sure. But how do we pin it down for
sure? Margaret Corliss says he didn't call on her--so if she's lying,
how do we know? Ask the neighbors if they heard her doorbell ring? If
they saw a 1957 Ford parked on the block?"

"Well, hell, I know, but--"

"We've committed ourselves," said Mendoza,
"to the premise that he got something very definite on
somebody--real evidence. Enough for an arrest right then, maybe. On
the Slasher, or on the Nestor thing. And that X knew it and took
steps right then to stop him passing it on. All right. Nobody
involved is going to hand us the information for the asking. Anybody
who says right away, ‘Why, yes, he was here'--like Mrs. Nestor--ten
to one hadn't a thing to do with it. But we don't know how many
places he'd been, because we don't know for certain what time he went
over the cliff--or how long he'd been tied up before. ¿Cómo no? The
only definite thing we're going to get is by following both of these
up hard and heavy--get the Slasher, find out all about Nestor's
taking off--and then we can put the finger on who sent Art over that
cliff and why. And don't tell me it's the long way round. We'll be
looking everywhere, but that's how it looks to me right now."

"Sense," said Dwyer laconically; he had
just come in. "What chores do I get?"

"You work through the rest of Nestor's address
book. Split it with Glasser--Nestor knew the hell of a lot of people.
John, you look for the legacy. I'll be seeing Corliss and the Elgers.
Who's on day shift? Let Galeano check into Telfer. And why in hell
didn't somebody spot the one clue on the Slasher you were handed free
gratis? Jimmy can check that out--"

"What? What clue?" asked Palliser blankly.

"
¡Porvida!
”
said Mendoza. "I caught that one as soon as I read the
statements! I'm surprised Art didn't pick it up.
Estupidos
--the
silver dollar! That bar where, evidently, the Slasher got talking to
Number Three--Theodore Simms. He had two straight whiskeys and paid
with a silver dollar and two dimes. How recently have any of you seen
a silver dollar?"

"My God," said Palliser. "I never
thought-- Of course you don't much any more. Only--"

"Only!" said Mendoza. "Exactly. All
this Goddamned inflation. We'd all be a damned sight smarter to feel
like that, hard money or nothing. But the fact remains, where do you
see silver dollars these days? Can any of you smart detectives tell
me?" Glasser and Scarne had come in now, were listening
silently.

"God's sake," said Dwyer. "Vegas. For
the high-priced one-arm bandits."

"All right," said Mendoza. "Where
else? I'll tell you. Up north. Through the gold country--anywhere
from Sacramento down through the San Joaquin--inland. All those
conservative rural types who like the feel of the hard money. So
let's find out if any more bars down around Second and Third have
taken in any silver dollars lately, and if anybody remembers anything
about the fellow handed them over, if so. And let's also send out
some inquiries in the direction of Vegas and up north."

"On what?" asked Glasser. "I don't
see----"

"
¡Ignorante!
"
said Mendoza irritably. "Art saw that. It's in the cards our
Slasher hasn't gone off the rails so sudden. That our Number One in
that hotel wasn't his Number One. Let's ask, anyway. Whether Vegas,
or any place up north, has had some mysterious knifings--lately, or
last year, or any time. Just for fun."

"Oh," said Palliser. "Yes, I see that.
But--"

"
¡Largo de aqui!
Let's get busy and work this thing! Jimmy, get busy on all that--"8

"Will do," said Sergeant Lake.

"And the rest of you, out! John, where's
Nestor's appointment book?"

"Far as I know, still in his office, why?"

"I want you to look at it. Meet me at Federico's
at twelve-thirty for lunch." Mendoza got up, reached for his
hat, and was out of the office ahead of them.
 
 

EIGHT

He stopped to have a few words with the
captain--Wiley, who had got that desk when Holmes retired last year.
Wiley was always a little on the defensive with Mendoza; he thought
it should have been Mendoza's promotion; Wiley had been a fixture in
the Forgery office for years. As a matter of fact Mendoza had been as
pleased to stay where he was; as captain he'd have had an even more
sedentary job, and he always hated to delegate authority.

"I hated like hell to call you back," said
Wiley, "but I knew you'd want to come anyway when you heard
about Hackett--the hell of a thing--and, damn it, I'm a delegate to
this Peace Officers' convention in Denver, flying out tonight."
He turned the whole mess over to Mendoza with undisguised relief.

Mendoza went to look at Frank Nestor's office.
Hackett, the trained and experienced man, was also by nature a
careful man. He remembered lessons and precedents. Unlike some
others, he had it always at the back of his mind that through
accident or some other cause another man might be taking over a case
he was working; and sometimes you got asked tricky questions in
court, too. Hackett took carefully detailed notes, not just cryptic
jottings as self-reminders.

Sitting at Frank Nestor's desk, Mendoza opened
Hackett's notebook again and reread two filled pages. He found the
appointment book on the desk and looked through it thoughtfully.
Quite an artistic job, he thought. He put it in his pocket and made a
tour of the office.

The whole place had been searched, and the boys were
usually thorough; but that was before Art had been sent over the
cliff--maybe in connection with this thing. If they were doing it
over now, they might take the place apart a bit more. Just in case,
Mendoza looked. He upended the soiled-clothes hamper in the lavatory
and was rewarded with a white smock that had a smear of old dried
blood down its front.

He rather liked that, so he looked further. Stuck to
the bottom of the metal wastebasket in the rear examination room he
found a tiny scrap of paper with the two letters MO printed on it. It
wasn't much, but he put that carefully away too.

He looked at the scrapbook full of high-society
doings, and the start of a very tentative theory formed in his mind
about that. He went down to the nurse's desk and looked that over
very thoroughly, but evidently she'd been allowed to clear it of
personal belongings. There were all five of the city telephone books
there. A tedious little job for somebody, probably Sergeant Lake, but
they'd have to be gone through; some people jotted down things in
phone books, or underlined numbers. He took them out to the Ferrari.

He went back and looked at all the rooms again. He
opened the top of the sterilizer; it was empty. He wished (as Hackett
had before him) that Hackett hadn't overlooked the precaution of
leaving a guard here that day, or had come back a little sooner.
Couldn't be helped now. He took down the white smock hanging in the
locker; it was unstained. But, after thought, he took the rubber
gloves along with him. Give the lab boys a little more work.

He found, in the nurse's desk, a ledger. Whoever had
kept the accounts had kept very sketchy ones. Maybe on purpose. He
took that along too.

He had looked up the address and phone number before
he left the office; now he dialed and asked whether Mr. Marlowe were
home.

Yes, he was, who was calling, please?

Mendoza thought that sounded like a servant. Did
anyone have butlers these days? A man's voice, anyway. He identified
himself, said he'd be obliged if Mr. Marlowe could give him a few
minutes, if he came by.

The address was on Kenniston Avenue, the other side
of Rimpau. A very classy district indeed: wide quiet streets of big,
very expensive houses. A good many houses sprawling over two or three
city lots, with outsize pools behind them and walls everywhere for
privacy. The Marlowe house, when he found it, was one of those. It
looked vaguely as if it had been modeled on a French château,‘it
had a three-car garage, and what looked like an honest-to-God butler
opened the door.

He was a small man, pale-faced, in a neat dark suit;
and Mendoza was a little surprise to him. He repeated his name
doubtfully, taking a second glance at Harrington's tailoring, the
Sulka tie, and the conservative black homburg he'd taken from
Mendoza's hand. Mendoza suspected he'd check the brand name in that
behind his back.

"If you'll come down to the library, sir,"
he said, wooden-faced. Mendoza followed him down a very wide carpeted
hall, past a pair of double doors and several ordinary ones, all
closed, to a door at the end on the right. The man opened this and
stood back. "The--ah--lieutenant," he murmured. Very
likely, before he saw the tie he'd have said, "The policeman."

Mendoza went into a large square room filled with
heavy furniture that belonged in a British men's club and was another
little surprise to the man who rose to welcome him. "Ah, yes--"
said William Marlowe, and stopped as if he'd blown up in his lines.
He eyed Harrington's tailoring and the tie too; he couldn't keep the
brief flicker of surprise out of his eyes. Mendoza let his expression
go very bland. He knew Marlowe's type at a glance, and he knew what
Marlowe had expected to meet in a Lieutenant Mendoza.

"Well, and what can I do for you, Lieutenant? Do
sit dowr1, won't you?" Marlowe was not a big man--about
Mendoza's own height, Five-ten----but broader and stockier. He was
about sixty, and well preserved: he'd kept his hair and not taken on
much weight. He had a roundish face, regular features, the inevitable
important-executive horn rims. His voice was an unfortunately
high-pitched tenor, with the hint of a British accent. More probably
New York and/or Harvard, thought Mendoza.

And Marlowe, prepared to condescend to a police
officer, had expected one out of a 1930 detective story, had expected
possibly the accent and low-class grammar, the deference to a rich
man.

Harrington's Italian silk had shaken him. Mendoza sat
down, smiling at him. Marlowe was wearing a dark blue suit of
excellent and conservative cut, and a plain navy tie. Mendoza glanced
at his shoes and said affably, "Do you visit England very often,
Mr. Marlowe?"

"I--why-- Usually once a year or so," said
Marlowe, taken aback. "How--"

Mendoza smiled. "The very British tailoring.
Savile Row? Personally I like Harrington quite well, if you keep an
eye on him." Marlowe would probably know how Harrington charged.
"Just a few questions, Mr. Marlowe. You know Mrs. Nestor. You
went to see her on Friday evening, I understand"

"
Oh, it's about that," said Marlowe. "Yes,
I did. I've always felt rather sorry for Andrea--I knew her father,
poor man. She's always--" He hunched his shoulders. "She's
one of those people, nothing ever turns out right for her. Perhaps
it's partly her own fault--I shouldn't say so, but she's a rather
stupid woman. That husband of hers, poor fellow, had all the drive
and the brain."

"I believe you lent him the money for the
chiropractic course?"

"
Yes, so I did. I saw he was--in earnest about
it, you see, and I had every confidence that he'd repay me. Which he
did. That's a tragedy there. Such a wanton thing. I most certainly
hope you'll find out who was responsible."

Marlowe bent to proffer a silver bowl of loose
cigarettes.

"Thanks so much, I'll have one of my own,"
said Mendoza. "When you were at Mrs. Nestor's apartment on
Friday evening you met one of my men there--Sergeant Hackett."